I know that many readers are very fed up with the returns they're getting on their savings. In my video, Savers aren't being smashed by the recession, I argued that some of the table-topping savings rates aren't as bad as they seem, but I accept that 2.75% isn't going to get anyone's pulse racing.
One alternative is the stock market. If you're prepared to invest in the stock market for the long-term (10 years or more), I think there's a strong chance that you'll do well. Historically, the stock market has delivered an average real return of 7% a year which is pretty impressive. That's if you go back to 1945.
Of course, any stock market investment is risky and you definitely can't assume that you'll get 7% a year in the future. What's more, the stock market has performed very badly over the last ten years.
Still, that poor performance means that share prices now look cheap to me. And that's why I'm pretty confident that performance will be better over the next decade.
Next steps
If you're tempted to put some money in the stock market, I'd urge you to visit our sister site, The Motley Fool, where you'll find lots of great investment ideas and can learn more about stocks and shares.
But if you want to keep things really simple, you could just put some money in a tracker fund. As their name suggests, these funds track a particular stock market index. So if the FTSE All-Share index rises by 10%, a FTSE All-Share tracker fund should rise by roughly the same amount. Tracker funds are nice, simple and cheap.
And as of next week, they'll be even cheaper. A big US fund manager, Vanguard, is launching a new range of tracker funds with very low charges. The annual charge on the Vanguard FTSE U.K Equity Index Fund is just 0.15% - as far as I know, no other UK tracker charges such a low rate.
Vanguard is also going to launch some other interesting funds such as Japan index fund where the charge will be 0.3% a year.
Vanguard's entry into the UK market is very exciting and there's a strong chance I'll put some money into at least on Vanguard fund at some point over the next year.
Postscript: Since writing this post I've discovered that Vanguard will only sell its funds through Independent Financial Advisers (IFAs). It won't be available through execution-only brokers. Investors who wish to buy units directly in the funds will need to pay in a minimum sum of £100,000. It's a great shame that Vanguard is restricting access to its funds in this way. These rules mean it's much less likely that I'll buy units in any of the Vanguard UK tracker funds.
More: Cheaper Index Trackers From Next Week | Investment Greats: John Bogle